


Holding Your Brave and Tattered Tiny Horses

by ALC_Punk



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Episode: The Day of the Doctor, Gen, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Timey-Wimey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-27
Updated: 2018-11-27
Packaged: 2019-09-01 05:27:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16758832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ALC_Punk/pseuds/ALC_Punk
Summary: Oswin is resolved to dying as the asylum explodes around her up until the moment that something materializes, blocking the view. Being saved by a cranky old man with a time machine and a fervor to continue destroying the Daleks might not be her best holiday, but it's certainly a step up from the alternative. After all, if Chinny can't show her the stars, at least this one can.





	1. Rescued From the Titanic

**Author's Note:**

> The epilogues sort of explain everything, but if you can slot this into the moment after the War Doctor gets into the TARDIS at the end of Day of the Doctor, and assume there was more time between him getting in and him regenerating... well, that's where this fic fits in. 
> 
> Because Oswin didn't deserve her end, but it never worked to have Eleven save her (perhaps Eight should? idk, I settled on Nine(ish)).
> 
> I really enjoyed writing this fic, and some of the scenes were just ridiculous "What if they went here?" ideas.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional quick note on the fic title: it's paraphrased from Belly's Low Red Moon.

Oswin could feel the Dalek Asylum coming apart around her as the Daleks above fired, desperate (though they would never term it that) to destroy this piece of insanity that rocked their world on its axis.

It wouldn't be long now. She would feel it all drift away, tumble out into nothingness and then become nothing more than a cloud of atoms. Better this way, really. No one to mourn Oswin Oswald, Dalek. The shipwreck would already have been reported, _Alaska_ , lost with all hands. The Company would have seen to that, it was always so efficient in its cold and impersonal way. There was no hate, nothing directed at a specific person; they only worried about their profit margins, and rescue missions with no profit were bound to fail before even being suggested.

Besides, she was already dead.

Distantly, the vibration of energy told her that the teleport had been successful, and she smiled with satisfaction. This was all worth it, as painful and horrible as it was. He would survive as would his companions. The Predator, the Oncoming Storm, whatever other ridiculous name they would give him, the Doctor would remain alive. They would forget him now, they would never understand their own doom.

The Doctor and the Daleks, twisting and turning forever trapped in an endless war neither of them remembered starting. She'd told him the truth--they had become stronger in fear of him. Without his meddling, would they have learned to fly?

No one could say, least of all her.

In counterpoint to the disintegrating walls, she could hear _Carmen_ again, ringing and wailing as the sound bounced around the walls of her prison. Soon, it would be all over.

A different sound intruded, though. A distant groaning, wheezing--Oswin tilted her head, turning to try to find the source. Was it the walls perhaps? Something about the core of the planet? Then the stark white walls of her prison were gone, replaced with different walls. And she was no longer in an exploding asylum.

There were several wild moments as the ship (it was a ship, had to be), shuddered and the wheezing sound took on an hysterical note before it all leveled off. It occurred to Oswin that landing and taking off in the middle of an exploding planet was probably not the easiest of tasks. It was a wonder the place wasn't in pieces at her non-existent feet.

Then she wondered if this were another dream.

No, wait. Dreams wouldn't include the smoke coming from the left nor the frantic mumbling of the craft's occupant.

It was a bit like a movie or a holo-vid, all dramatic sparking with flashing lights that gave the scene a bit more of an edge than it really needed. The interior wasn't what she was used to, in a ship. Towering girders, strange roundeled walls, and the space of a cathedral. Fanciful and falling apart, in places. Bit like the asylum after she'd had a good go at it, really.

There was a man, whirling around to face her, his face contorting with fear and anger. The sort of anger she'd seen on Chinny's face, although he'd covered it well. 

There was a gun, and it was pointed at her. From the look on his face, he knew how to use it and would.

"No, wait--" Oswin shouted, babbling at him, "I'm not a Dalek--ok, I am, yes. But I'm human! I've overcome my programming, I won't hurt you!"

Probably not the most convincing of arguments, she admitted to herself as the moment seemed to stretch into infinity. Even if she had _wanted_ to defend herself, she was pretty sure her own gun was still deactivated from when the asylum motive units had wrapped her in chains and left her to rot in a dream-induced _Carmen_ fugue.

The gun didn't waver, then it slowly fell and the old man sagged, leaning against the hexagonal center console that looked as though it had seen better days. Wires protruded from half a dozen places, and the bits that weren't sparking anymore looked scorched and burned. "I suppose neither of us can fire, anyway."

Oswin frowned, though he couldn't see it. One day, she would learn to let other people see her (she missed running under blue skies and feeling the wind on her face). "Why couldn't we?"

There was no point in antagonizing him, though. No point in _testing_... still. Oswin leaned forward and typed a command, _feeling_ the response almost instantaneously. For a moment, there was a terrifying sense of dislocation. Of having been forever and never having been and being four, five, a billion different moments at once. It was not the 'Pathweb with its ordered lines and numbers, it was a swirling, terrifying nothingness and everythingness and all-at-once-ness that sent her reeling into her chair.

If she'd been able to, she would have rocked back on her heels (did Dalek casings have heels? She would have to think about that later). Reaching out to ask a question had not prepared her to be connected to infinity.

Then there was something else, a gentle, soothing _pulse_ that seemed less confused than she was until Oswin found herself back, her fingers frozen against the keyboard, the smell of a burnt souffle filling her nostrils.

"State of temporal grace," she murmured. "I see."

"Yes." He was staring at her again.

"I know this must seem odd--well, it's odd to me to, of course. I didn't ask to become a Dalek, then again, I don't think anyone does. And they're always so confused when I'm not like them. And that was even before I started pulling their world apart." She was smirking in remembrance, though he couldn't see it. A whole century's worth (or more) of neglect in one year. Weren't many who could claim that sort of track record. No wonder the Asylum had gone up so fast, even with the shield down. "My name is Oswin Oswald, I was a junior entertainment manager and we crashed. You?"

He frowned, fiddling with the gun still in his hands. Almost as though he couldn't remember who he was, or didn't wish to. There were days when Oswin could have understood that. "You can call me the Warrior."

"Now that's a name that says everything," Oswin joked. "And nothing at the same time. How've you managed that?"

"Chance."

"Seems a ridiculous bit of chance--hang on, that's a much better name, anyway. Quicker for shouting out in the case of danger." Oswin typed away, cheerfully feeling into the vast operating system with much more delicacy, this time. She didn't need to pass out on the floor of her own delusion, after all.

"Oswin--"

"Yes?"

He shook his head, not seeming to know what to say. Chinny had been at a loss once or twice, too. Wistfully, Oswin thought about he and Nina and Amy. Had they survived teleporting up to the Dalek ship in orbit? She rather thought they had, given his abilities to twist and scheme.

Oswin wriggled herself a little, half-standing in her dreamworld yet still feeling the flooring under her casing. "So, Chance. Where should we go?"

"They're still out there, you know." The Warrior, rubbish name that it was, moved towards the console again, fingers brushing the levers and buttons lovingly. "We got the bulk of the fleet, but there will still be outposts to destroy."

"I'm not sure I like the sound of that." Just as soon be stuck in an exploding Dalek asylum as take on a mission to destroy worlds. She frowned at her screens, tapping a comment in as she waited. There was no home for her to return to; no one could recover from being a Dalek, and she didn't really fancy her chances as a junior entertainment manager in a body shaped like a giant pepper-pot. Still, could be a challenge she'd enjoy. "You couldn't just let me off somewhere?"

"The Daleks, Oswin." He laughed, the sound bitter. "There will always be more Daleks to destroy."

"I _am_ a Dalek, Chance."

"Yes."

Oswin sucked in a breath, considering. There were worlds out there still under Dalek rule. Places where the universe burned--she could almost feel it now (along with was-es and will-bes and have-beens), pushing in at the walls of her virtual world. She could make them all become obsolete, as she had the Asylum. She could turn their systems against them, could lock them away from humanity and the universe at large forever.

"I don't want to kill them."

His eyes widened a little, and he looked at her, then away. "You won't have to."

"No, you don't understand." Rolling forward, typing away, Oswin found the voice modulator, _twisted_ it. Her own voice echoed into the space of the console area. "I don't want you to kill them either. I know how to fix them, Chance. You just have to get me to them."

"Fix them, how?"

She swallowed, aware she was gambling on uncertainties. But also unwilling to allow the hatred that was wired into her casing, burning in her brain, to be allowed to come to the fore. "Make them obsolete. There are protocols, I can lock them out of their germination units and stop the Dalek production lines cold."

There was an odd look in his eyes as he listened, as though he were hearing someone else in her voice. Perhaps a memory of a lost one. Oswin wouldn't pry. Not yet.

Another breath that didn't exist, and she added, "Let's run, Chance. Let's run and never look back. But no exterminating, got it?"

Something that might have been a smile crossed his face and he reached out, hand hovering for a moment before it touched the side of her dome gently. If she'd been real, she would have felt the callouses on her shoulder through her shirt. Oswin swallowed, wanting to be real again for an instant. To touch, taste, feel---

"All right, Oswin. No exterminating."

A breath escaped her, the sigh echoing around them. "Right. Good. So, where are you going to take me, then? Show me the stars."

He turned to the console and pressed a series of buttons. "Next stop: Skaro."

"Not aiming high or anything," she joked as she turned back to her keyboard and began typing. "Just, once there, open a radio link to get me situated before we go in."

"I'll see what I can do."

"And maybe you could make a souffle while we're flying. Haven't seen a real one in years."


	2. Skaro Burns the Sky Down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Encounters on Skaro never go as planned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> River Song in her alter ego as Melody Malone makes an appearance here. I don't think I've contradicted BF canon?

The Warrior watched the Dalek in his TARDIS, and his insides twisted into hatred again. He kept his composure, knowing somewhere deep that the hatred was too fresh, too vast to encompass just one Dalek (and hadn't he burned them all, he remembered that so clearly - at the end, when there had been a button and then burning).

So much burning. His head still echoed with the screams of the children (he never ever wants to count them, but he knows he will). He almost told the Dalek he was the _Doctor_ \--after what he had done, he would never, could never (will never) be the Doctor.

Not with the stain upon his soul, not that he's ever quite believed in souls before. But now? Now he can feel it as a sort of tearing, awful sensation.

(except that hadn't really happened, he would know if they'd succeeded, but a fez never lies)

He felt like he was all raw edges (where had the coordinates come from), and there was the sudden Dalek to make it worse.

They were supposed to be gone forever, destroyed, never to have been. The universe, all of time had been burning around them and he'd had to put a stop to it.

The Moment had been clear there would be no going back.

(and yet, and yet, and yet)

"Would you like a chair for your brooding?" The Dalek asked, the young woman's voice an incongruous sound as it escaped from the voice synthesizers and danced around him like a fresh breath of air.

"Seriously," she continued, when he didn't respond. "I could cut the dull air in here with a knife. If I had a knife."

"You're impossible," he said. The words echoed inside his head, ricocheting around (but time was the boss of him and he couldn't remember why that was familiar). He shook his head, briskly trying to free it of the cobwebs. "Sorry, where did I say we were going?"

"Skaro. Home of the Daleks for a little quality time with the survivors--not in the killing sense, mind."

There was something wrong about a Dalek who wasn't all for war, hatred, death and destruction. "Shouldn't you be demanding my immediate death?"

"We've been past that, already. Weren't you listening?"

He rubbed both hands over his face and pushed the last of the bitter memories into a hole. Later, he could take them out and let them parade for his amusement. All of the blood of the universe, none of it his own. "Yes, sorry. I'm a little tired."

The Dalek shifted, uncertain. "You should sit down, Chance. Can't have my ticket to a fun life of Dalek crime falling on his face."

Chance was a fine thing... The Warrior found himself taking her advice, settling into the chair he'd used as a sleeping aid on those nights when he hadn't been too busy chasing Dalek time corridors.

Towards the end, it had been all any of them could do to keep step with the Daleks. Their progenitors were infinite, Gallifrey's Looms were not. So many Daleks, so many Time Lords turned soldier. So many people who were nothing but machines in the end. Machines of death and destruction.

But all of that was past. It was recent past, a bitter lesson in the way the universe never made bargains.

Not even with him.

"Sorry, I feel like I should be playing some sort of somber, depressing music. Possibly whilst wearing black eyeliner." Oswin the Dalek broke into his thoughts, her tone slightly amused.

"I'm not sulking."

"Of course not."

Before he could fire back a response, the TARDIS shuddered and landed with a thunk of discontented drives. The Cloister Bell kept its own counsel.

-=-

Skaro was burned into every Dalek's data-banks, a green-black-frozen place that they no longer called home (Daleks don't _feel_ for things like _home_ ). But nevertheless, it was something ingrained in them. Skaro was a myth, a legend. Burned and destroyed utterly, they'd brought it back with time travel and paradoxes. Oswin wasn't sure how they'd managed that, the data banks, even the 'Pathweb weren't particularly good on that subject.

Perhaps Skaro had never been destroyed.

Not really her interest, though.

The city was a ruined, bloated sprawl of muddy reds and dark golds. Twisted metal hulks, burnt and fallen blocks of stone, buildings that had once had purpose now gone beyond recognition. There were still pathways through the rubble, here and there, and Oswin chose one at random.

Behind her, she heard Chance muttering something about history being wrong, but ignored him for the moment.

This wasn't her history, she thought. She was no more Dalek than Chance was, and there was a sense of just-happened to the destruction. From the little she'd gleaned while in the asylum, Skaro had been burned for centuries.

Centuries had the weight of dust and years, and stumbling over a shattered sensor panel, Oswin found only hours or days.

"This is wrong," she murmured, surprised when her words were picked up by the wind.

She'd forgotten how she sounded in the outside world again. The harsh, grating rasp of the Dalek voice synthesizer, no longer modulated with the assistance of Chance's craft.

(Oswin shied away from thoughts of had-beens and fore-nows)

The ping from a data crystal caught her attention, and she tapped into it, fingers flying over the keys. Distantly, she noted that Chance had wandered off in an entirely different direction. She wondered if she should worry about him, then let the thought go. He was a big boy, he could take care of himself. Probably.

Data spilled into her screens, scrolling up almost too-fast to read. It was a record of the war, the last desperate stand of a patrol of Daleks as the Doctor destroyed them utterly.

Her blood stilled as she viewed the destruction from inside her own Dalek casing, as she remembered Chinny and his madness, as she remembered clearly deleting him from the 'Pathweb. She'd already done it, hadn't she? This wasn't some data echo that would wreck everything and add him back--

If she thought about that, she wouldn't remember the utter implacability of Chance with his gun raised and his eyes cold and bleak.

No one should look like that.

She wondered why he didn't recognize her now. She wondered how he'd changed his face, why he'd changed his name.

So many questions.

"You can't tell him."

The woman had snuck up on Oswin, and she reacted on instinct, gun-stick raising. "You--"

She choked, fighting the need to _exterminate_. It didn't matter who the woman was, Oswin was not a Dalek. She was human, she was--

"You are Oswin Oswald," the woman said, moving up to place a hand on her casing. "You are still human, inside. You can fight this and you may have to, forever."

Oswin drew in a shuddering breath, found her fingers flexing on the keyboard again. She typed a quick command and then said, "Sorry. Bad habit."

The woman was a curly-haired blonde. Older than Oswin, younger than Chance, she was dressed in practical brown pants and boots and a cleavage-bearing top that Oswin still envied. She dropped her hand and tilted her head, "Like what you see?"

Being flirted with wasn't entirely a new experience. Well, it was with the whole being a Dalek thing, if one didn't count Chinny. Oswin shook herself, feeling her whole casing twitch. She rather missed being able to roll her eyes and hips, she thought wistfully as she gathered her scattered wits in order to reply. "I'd like it more if you could tell me who you are and how you know me. Not that I'm complaining, mind."

Grinning, the woman tossed her curls over her shoulder. "I'm Melody Malone. We meet a bit out of order, I think. My past, your future."

"How?"

"Didn't he tell you it travels in time?"

"Wait. It travels in time, too?"

Melody huffed out a laugh. "I really can't leave him on his own. It's unfortunate he can't meet me, though. Not now."

"That makes no sense."

"It will." Sobering suddenly, Melody leaned in, hand on Oswin's casing again. "You have to remember something, Oswin. Something very important."

"What?"

"You can't erase him in the past."

Oswin felt herself shiver again (really not missing goosebumps, though perhaps Dalek bumps almost counted). There were a hundred questions she could ask in response, a billion different ideas suddenly blossoming. Just as quickly, though, she throttled them down and settled on one. "Why not?"

"There's already too much time interference, too many realities breaking into each other with what's just occurred to the Daleks."

For a moment, Oswin almost asked her what he'd done.

But she'd already seen the recording of him gunning down the patrol, and didn't want to know what could be worse.

"How does he change his face?"

That surprised Melody, and she straightened, eyes wide. "You've seen another?"

"I've seen so many, before I erased him from the 'Pathweb. I didn't have time to ask, then."

Frowning, Melody raised her wrist and tapped a sequence onto her wrist-strap. "You met a later version of him. Time might not like that. Listen, Oswin, you cannot tell him about what you've already done."

"I sort of have?"

"It doesn't matter. You cannot elaborate or bring it up again. There are some events, some things he cannot know if he's to face his own future."

That sounded ominous, not to mention ridiculous. Oswin snorted, "Doom and gloom and the end of the world?"

"The universe, as it happens."

Melody was deadly serious, the sort of look Oswin had seen in Chinny's eyes when he first stepped into her cell (the milk, Oswin. Where did you get the milk?). Oswin felt the lights dimming around her and centered herself. Quietly, she said, "He can't know about you, either."

"I knew you'd be a fast learner," Melody replied, her lips half-twisted into a bittersweet smile. "I'm afraid I can't stay much longer. But thank you."

"I know he survives. That's enough for me."

Melody didn't reply as she raised her wrist and tapped in another sequence. Electricity displaced the air currents around her and then she was gone.

The fate of the universe, huh? Right. Oswin shrugged and settled down to tap into the data crystal. She couldn't erase him, but she could do as she'd suggested. It was a half-mad idea, but anything that kept the Daleks from their progenitors would be a step in the right direction.

And Chance wouldn't have to kill again.


	3. Side-Trips Into Infinity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They travel forever and yet no time at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More River (she kept sneaking in), and Missy makes an out of timeline appearance (well, the timelines are still recovering, after all).

They travel forever, yet not at all. That's what the history books (what remains of them) will say. The Dalek and Chance--two people who should never have met, yet did. Only one of them will truly remember. Time was always being re-written around them, Melody had told Oswin that more than once, though Melody didn't always remember that she'd met Oswin.

And Oswin loved the traveling, rolling in and out of the scruffy blue box, seeing a hundred different worlds and times. It didn't matter that there was a mission to carry out, that she saw more death and destruction as time went on. She was twisting the Dalek's own programming so they couldn't use it. Distilling their genetic code and leaving dead progenitors behind her as she went. It was getting more of her own back, staking one more flag.

_I am human, I am not a Dalek._

There would be an end, of course. There always was.

Oswin didn't watch for it, didn't plan for it. There was no point in planning for the end when the present and the past were far more interesting.

Sometimes, she would stand (perch? Hover?) outside the TARDIS, eye-stalk raised and stare into the sky. Would she grow old, as a Dalek? Would she change, ever-so-slowly, to something that was even more machine? Would she atrophy and age as a lumpy, blobby mass inside the machine casing?

Not the sort of pleasant thought one enjoyed, of course. And she could answer some of the questions with her own internal databases.

But what would be the point?

Daleks weren't the only things they attended to, she and Chance. After the first several, they stumbled onto a planet with a different sort of problem. Then another time, he took her to meet a famous chef and Oswin finally got to see a souffle, even if she couldn't touch, taste or smell it.

The thought was what counted, and she treasured the look of the souffle for months after.

Her own attempts were never as good (even if it was a dream, it was a very nice one, and it was home).

Dalek planets and Dalek prisons (they released so many people who would never love a Dalek) and Dalek skirmishes. It was clean-up for an intergalactic war that was still happening in some corners of time and space. A task that would never have an end, Oswin began to realize. For every Dalek they left stranded, destroyed or twisted into nothing there were two, three, four others. For every progenitor she broke, for every strand of the 'Pathweb she twisted, they adapted.

Not always well, and sometimes, it worked in their favor.

But it was still disheartening.

On one of the black days, Melody Malone tried to kill her. Gun to eye-stalk, anger in her eyes.

_My past, your future..._ the words gave Oswin courage, even as she could tell that Melody needed only another moment to finish pulling the trigger. "I am not a Dalek."

The words were enough to give Melody pause, then she shook her head. "You are all the same, voice synthesizers or not. I am not going to let you continue to destroy him."

"You can't interfere. This has already happened for you, Melody."

Eyes wide, Melody jerked, the gun rattling against the eye-stalk before she steadied herself. " _How do you know my name?_ "

It was amazing that someone could shout and scream when their voice was barely a whisper. Oswin wanted to smile, but found she couldn't, even in her own mind's eye. "We've met before. My name is Oswin Oswald, I am not a Dalek. You told me then that time was still re-writing itself, that history wasn't fixed anymore."

"With the Time Lords wiped-out," Melody murmured, her face pale and eyes grave. "There is no one to keep the timelines in order anymore."

"Something like that." Something to file away for future contemplation, somewhere the Pathweb couldn't touch, obviously.

"You shouldn't be here. He destroyed you all, you should be wiped from reality."

"Gallifrey burned."

The interruption startled both of them and Melody half-turned, staring at Chance. "You shouldn't be here."

"Neither should you, whoever you are."

"Oh. You wouldn't know me."

And something about the weight of her words, about the way she holstered her weapon and reached for her wrist-strap, told Oswin that he shouldn't know her. That this was another piece of the causality puzzle that Melody had begun with her back on Skaro. Melody flickered out of existence before she could even think of the right way to ask without giving the game away to Chance.

He snorted. "What an appalling way to travel. Are you ready to go, my dear?"

"Yes. Yes, I should be. The last unit is drifting into the sun as we speak." Oswin shook herself mentally and stood within her casing, stretching her hands to the ceiling. "Can we have a vacation after this one? By my reckoning we've done ninety-nine percent of the units left in the universe. I say we deserve some sand and sea."

"That's an exaggeration," he objected as he turned to lead the way back to the TARDIS. "But the point is well-taken."

-=-

There was sand and sea, although Oswin found out quickly that the former was not pleasant to get stuck in one's casing and the latter wasn't something she could dabble her toes in. As they were non-existent except for in her inner elaborate hallucination

"Well. Thank you," she offered, as Chance finished using an air-blaster to remove the last of the itchy sand particles from her lower banks.

At least, they'd felt itchy. Oswin wasn't entirely sure that it wasn't something psychosomatic ( _could_ Daleks have psycho-somatic reactions to memory impressions? Something to add to a thesis, perhaps). She felt better, though, and that was really what counted.

-=-

The next planet wasn't sandy, but there was a beach. With rocks. To be fair, though, it was fairly relaxing. Chance pulled out an ancient set of fishing tackle and settled down in a deck chair while she carefully melted sections of rocks into ramps and trundled up and down (sometimes, she flew, but she mostly liked being on the ground. It was harder to remember that she was human when she was in the air with nothing beneath her feet)

Hours were spent dallying. The fresh air was enjoyed, the purplish ocean water was inspected, the kelpies in the distance...

Well, they didn't manage to kill Chance, and Oswin found them rather interesting, even as they shrieked and shot bone spikes at the two of them.

Luckily, the TARDIS wasn't that far.

-=-

Chance scratched a hand over his face, then looked at her as he set the coordinates for the next destination. "This may take a little while." His fingers caressed the console, "Old girl is getting on a bit, and being impaled with bone spikes makes her cranky."

"I agree. But let's take all the time we need for this once." Oswin said as she rolled herself into one of the sections in the console room. "Long enough for a little nap, at least."

Naps weren't really a requirement for a Dalek, but she did enjoy the illusion of them.

The strains of _Carmen_ began to play as she curled up in her chair. In the morning, she decided, she would consider making a souffle in the kitchen. The TARDIS kitchen, not her own. Her own wasn't going to get a souffle anywhere.

Though that could be fascinating - making a souffle twice over at the same time. And without even using a time machine, though she'd be inside of one. Oswin giggled sleepily to herself and closed her eyes.

-=-

"Well isn't this entertaining. The man who can't be controlled and his little side-kick." A rather elegantly attired woman sashayed around Oswin, her hand reaching out to stroke over her casing. "Do you really think you'll make a difference, dear?"

"You're different." Oswin found her fingers flying over the keys, trying to use the Pathweb to identify the woman. She knew this woman, didn't she?

"I should hope so." Bending close, the woman whispered, "It's lovely to meet you. I'm Missy."

Missy. Right. something about that sent a tingle of recognition through Oswin. Where had she met this woman before, or was it a future meeting? Like Melody Malone, or some of the strange echoes she'd gotten in the Dalek camps (or Chance's future incarnation that he hadn't become yet).

"He doesn't know who you are," Oswin replied, wishing that the Dalek synthesizer would give her voice more nuance out in the open air. The irritating buzz was always slightly off-putting when she noticed it.

"Quite. I just wanted to pop back and have a gander. You don't mind, do you?"

Deciding that, like Melody, this Missy was simply trying to get on everyone's nerves to knock them off-center, Oswin grinned. Not that Missy could _see_ that grin, of course. Oswin rather liked having a secret from arch nemesis types. If that was what Missy was. Unlike Melody, Oswin though that might be exactly what Missy was. There was simply something about her careful couture (not that Oswin minded that, she was rather appreciative of nicely-draped fabric herself, even if Dalek bumps weren't particularly fashionable with chiffon and lace).

"What if I did mind, would I be able to stop you?" Mostly an idle question, as while Oswin's ability with Daleks and the Pathweb was quite legendary (if she did say so herself), there wasn't particularly much she could do to stop a single person who had access to technology like Chance's.

Another assumption, but Oswin did think that assumptions were useful short-hand, and she was clever enough to know she was right.

Daleks were rather good at sensing higher technology, she thought to herself smugly. In some worlds, they would probably be considered magic.

Though magic, with all its idiosyncrasies, was quite beyond the Daleks in general.

Even with hatred as their base, everything was built on logic. Magic didn't run on any sort of logic, from what Oswin had seen. Her fingers danced over the keys for a moment, finally pulling up something that might be close to what was in front of her.

The Master. Sometime ally of the Daleks (to be used, abused, discarded, betrayed, and ultimately destroyed, though he never seemed to learn as he'd allied with them far too many times for anyone's health). And male.

Missy was certainly a step up from the images she saw, though she was a chip off the rather dapper one who'd assisted in the Earth-Draconia war effort. Oswin wondered if the Daleks saw people as fashionable or not. Probably not, she decided as she flipped through the rather drab black and whites they had recorded. Though both Mr. Dapper and Missy certainly worked well in black and white photography. Enough shades to have grays and definition.

"I suppose you wouldn't be able to, dear. Now. What lovely things are my old allies keeping about me in their files?"

Here was someone she didn't plan to ever delete from the Pathweb. Oswin twitched her fingers, wanting desperately to add _Missy_ as an additional entry. But she knew about the timelines and causality now, and changing the future wasn't something she wanted to attempt. The Dalek encampments, the locking of the units--all of that had happened. Hadn't happened _yet_. Was happening due to she and Chance.

Something throbbed through her room, and she jumped, feeling the pulse of the TARDIS for a moment, as she had when she'd grabbed for anything to help her, early on in their relationship.

"Oh, they don't know about you, of course."

"True." Missy smirked and leaned into Oswin's casing, casually slinging an arm around her. "They won't remember me. Not just yet. You, dear, though. You might."

"Have. Will."

"It's such a pity no one can hear that lovely voice of yours. Oh well, I've got other fish to fry."

There was a strange brush against her casing that Oswin was fairly certain was a _kiss_ , and then Missy was sauntering away, swinging her parasol and almost twirling as she fiddled with the bracelet on her wrist.

And then she was gone, disappearing into thin air in a similar manner to Melody.

"Horrible way to travel," Oswin muttered before deciding to file the entire encounter under Things Not To Dwell On. For Now.


	4. The End is The Past is the Future is Comingled With Rewritten Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All things end. All things begin in some fashion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I left a lot of open space for additional ideas, but my main plot burnt itself out at the end of the last chapter, really. 
> 
> I actually had the ending and epilogues written sometime back before River's second appearance, I just had to bridge the gaps. And also decide how much delighted and cranky Dalek Oswin I wanted to write. 
> 
> Various other people make appearances in this one (Eleven, Clara, Twelve, & River).

"Did you ask for a jungle planet?" Chance sounded perturbed as he stood on the slope above her.

It was a delightful jungle planet, full of vines and creeping things, humidity that would (almost) rust a Dalek and thick forest that made it difficult to traverse. Not that Oswin minded. She was simply enjoying the freedom that locking the last motive unit had given her.

She and Chance had done it. The Daleks were gone, according to him, locked away at the end of the Time War they had started with no end in sight. And now even if they could somehow return, they would be unable to use their own technology to subjugate the universe again. Oh, sure, the Pathweb was still there, and Oswin wasn't entirely sure that the lock would hold forever (after all,the future with the Nose and the Chin and Angry Scottish Girl had included new Daleks, old Daleks and everything in-between).

But that wasn't really her problem to worry about.

Not yet, at any rate.

"I didn't, but it's... all right," she decided as eyed a vine that looked like it was slowly creeping up the hill. "Although, I'm not so sure about the flora, Chance."

Another vine was slipping up towards them, and she began rolling backwards towards the TARDIS. Trust Chance to land them somewhere with destructive vegetation, she reflected, as he yelped and joined her in the hasty retreat.

They could visit a different jungle planet later.

-=-

_It is with a great deal of sadness that I write this to you, dearest Hanna._

Oswin read the words over the woman's shoulder. They'd been working on liberating one of the last Dalek camps, and Oswin had retreated more times than she wanted to remember into her hallucination rather than face the wretched conditions. Now, they were nearly finished. Only a few more to unearth from their cells.

The Daleks had long since fled, or been confused into killing each other. Oswin was particularly proud about that ability. Just a slight twist in their perceptions via the Pathweb, and half the Daleks thought the others were Thals.

Chance had actually applauded that.

The woman she'd found seemed different to the others, though Oswin wasn't sure why.

"Not to be rude," Oswin interrupted the letter-writing, "But you're rescued."

Tilting her head back, the woman stared at Oswin, eyes narrowing. "You're a Dalek."

"Well, yes. But I'm not like the others. My name's Oswin."

One shoulder raised, then the woman shook her head. "That sounds like an interesting hallucination for a Dalek to be having."

Grinning inside her casing, Oswin retorted, "One woman's hallucination is another woman's high cost of living. Anyway, like I said. Time to be going. Best to get out of here quickly. Like ripping off a plaster."

The camp they'd liberated this time had been fairly easy. Oswin liked to think she was just getting better at this than everyone else, but there wasn't anyone else who could do what she could. The mud had proved a bit of a problem, though, and she wished it didn't make such squelchy noises as she rolled through it (or over it, technically. She'd not worked out swooping in aerial show fashion, but hovering worked like a dream when she wanted to avoid things like large rocks. Or mud). The mean little huts that the slave labor had been huddled in were mostly empty now. It was just this one, and she and Chance would be home free for another little adventure on the side.

Oswin was quite looking forward to seeing Paris in the twentieth century.

"Darla."

"Good name, that. Now, up you go, and lets get some freedom."

OK, maybe that was a little over-the-top in cheerfulness. Definitely not a phrase she'd try again.

Something twisted on Darla's face, and she looked down at the letter in her hand, only just begun. "I need to finish this."

"Refugee ship. Did I mention? Anyway, it's much drier there."

Also, there was hot cocoa. Oswin had asked for it especially when she'd been chivying along the captain from Thoros Beta. The man hadn't been particularly pleasant about it, but he'd finally allowed that it would be possible. Sure, cocoa wasn't really a good substitute for vitamins and food. But it was certainly comforting.

Something finally seemed to click with Darla, and she staggered to her feet. "All right. If this is a dream. I suppose it's better than last night's rations."

-=-

Darla had been the last of the refugees to get on board the rescue ship that Chance had commandeered For some reason, Oswin felt an odd twinge as she watched the ship make orbit. They were heading for one of the nearby Terran colonies. Someplace that Oswin would once have considered as an excellent destination for the starship _Alaska_ and her crew.

"I suppose we should push off, then."

"Mm." Chance looked at her, his craggy face seeming to attempt something that might have been a smile. "Have you considered what you'll do now? The last Dalek?"

"I was thinking margarita shooters by the pool, but I suppose that's not really an option." Wistfully, Oswin let herself feel the outer casing of her reality. For a moment, there were more bumps on her skin than she was supposed to have, and a single ocular appliance, and a whisk and a plunger... And then she returned to her personal reality, fingers stroking the slightly warn velvet of her chair. Throne. Command center, that was a better term.

"Well, there's a pool on one of the moons of Junglan Beta that might not mind a Dalek lurking."

There was a sort of fondness there, and it made Oswin glad. He'd been so terribly lonely, and then so uncertain, hateful, and angry at her. He'd tolerated her, and perhaps even had liked her. Now she felt that he might possibly accept her.

Caught up in her own thoughts and reality, Oswin missed the blip until it was too late.

About to enter the TARDIS, Chance turned back to hurry her along, and his eyes widened. "Oswin--"

But he never got to finish the sentence, as the Dalek just behind her opened fire, the shot flying past her with an enraged, "You are an enemy of the Daleks, you will be exterminated!" Shrieking through the air along with it.

The shot was off-center, knocking Chance backwards into the doorway.

The TARDIS gave a distressed sort of wriggle, and the door slammed closed as a bell rang. It was an angry, mournful sound.

"What, no, wait--" Oswin whirled, grabbing for the sensory perceptions in the Pathweb around her, twisting the Dalek that had shot her friend until it was rolling in circles, unable to figure out which way was up and which down.

A great wheezing and groaning filled the air and Oswin knew it wasn't a mistake, knew it wasn't the perception filters.

The TARDIS was fading from view, Chance, or the machine herself, launching them away into the time vortex. Preserving him, protecting him, as she was meant to do.

"Wait for me," Oswin called, knowing it was far too late. Knowing this was the end for their partnership.

And then it was gone, and she was left alone and desolate, stranded on a planet filled with mud and confused Daleks. Oswin settled into her chair and pulled her knees up, setting her chin on them as she considered her new reality.

"Well. I suppose it's for the better. Partnership between a time lord and a Dalek. It'd never last," she whispered.

She would give him a few hours to recover, at most a day, and then she would set about rescuing herself. It was what she had always been best at, after all. Even before crash-landing onto the asylum.

With that settled, she made sure the Dalek who had lost her Chance was still completely befuddled and then trundled off to a more defensible location.

-=-

Inside the TARDIS, the HADS having kicked in, the Doctor fell heavily against the console after staggering up the ramp to it. His mind was a whirl, a jumble. There were too many things he was forgetting. People and places. There'd been a museum, he suddenly remembered, and a painting.

_Sorry about the showing off._

_And the Dalek._

Time had run past that point, he thought, staring blearily at the console, trying to work out where he was heading.

There'd been tea and crumpets and saving Gallifrey.

"I won't remember this, will I," he whispered, echoing himself. Though he couldn't remember if it had been a few minutes or a life-time since he'd said that.

Electricity was beginning to slip along his nerves, and he recognized it. Welcomed it, in fact.

"Yes," he said, looking down at his hands, which were starting to glow. "Of course. I suppose it makes sense. Wearing a bit thin..."

The glow was intensifying, and he straightened a little, feeling more winded than he should. He wondered if if were a side effect of having used the elixir of life to regenerate into his current body. Or if was just the war of attrition with the Daleks which made all the difference.

Just before it all came to a halt, before he stepped out of reality and this life-time, a cheeky thought occurred to him, and he suggested to his DNA as it began unraveling, "I hope the ears are a bit less conspicuous this time!"

Energy exploded within the TARDIS, and he knew no more.

-=-

_-epilogue-_

Dateline: Before, after and in-between. London. National Gallery.

Clara Oswald, the Impossible Girl, sat with the man who would become her Doctor, who had fought an endless war and then changed his own past. He seemed less tired than he'd been, but still certainly more grizzled than the other two. They were off somewhere in the under-gallery, faffing about and one-upping each on crowning moments in history. Perhaps that was to be expected.

And this one. There was something she had to say to him, suddenly. Before she forgot.

"I lied to him," Clara said. It wasn't something she felt proud of, in this moment, but she'd learned it from him. Keeping secrets and pretending lies were so much a part of their early travels together; she understood now, of course. Looking at the war-weary Doctor, she wondered if he truly understood what was to come. "I told him I didn't remember you. But I do. And I don't know how."

"What has that got to do with anything?" The Time Lord mused in response. "Perhaps you've met me in dreams in the TARDIS."

"No. No, this is something far different." She dug into her pocket, retrieving the piece of paper she'd been toying with at the school--something that she'd forgotten about until just now. "It's this. You have to go here."

He looked at the numbers, eyebrows raising. "These are coordinates."

"Yes. Just trust me, all right?" The certainty filling her made her confused. Why were there memories filling her mind? Brief glimpses like the others--this wasn't the Victorian London she'd never seen or the halls of the Matrix or the paths of the dead on Long Merrow.

The paper square was folded into a smaller paper square, and he nodded. "I will trust you, Clara Oswald. You saved me, after all."

"Nah," she objected, bumping his shoulder with hers. "You did that all yourself."

He hrmphed, but lapsed into silence.

-f-

* * *

Epilogue 2

"The Dalek who traveled with the Doctor. Now there's a headline for you."

Looking up from the paper hat he was folding, the Doctor frowned at River. "That's not a headline, that's a recipe for disaster."

"And you would know, sweetie?" The suggestion was offered with a raised eyebrow. River's paper hat was already perched on her curls, set at a jaunty angle. It should have been falling off, but managed not to.

"No. No, I don't think I would." If there was just the moment where he thought about Oswin Oswald and her impossible situation, he didn't admit it. Not even to himself. After all, one couldn't have a Dalek in one's TARDIS. That just wasn't thought of, not to mention sounding entirely too dangerous. "It would be like tempting fate."

"You like tempting fate," River shot back.

"I do not."

She let the raised eyebrows speak for themselves and reached for another sheet of paper. There were still Rory and Amy's hats to do, after all.

"Anyway, if I had traveled with a Dalek--which I haven't--she would most certainly have never met you." Certain that he was correct, the Doctor grabbed for a particularly lurid sheet of paper.

That enigmatic little smug smile crossed River's lips. "Are you so sure she didn't? Perhaps she called me by another name."

"Very." There was a strange moment where uncertainty reflected in his eyes, then he shook his head and the uncertainty was gone. "Not that it matters. Now, do you think Rory has an old Christmas list we can peruse? Because I'm worried I'm rubbish at gifts."

Letting the subject drop, River smiled a genuine, amused smile. "Don't fret so. You'll figure something out."

And he did, of course.

He also didn't forget about the suggestion of a Dalek traveling companion, though it mostly curled up in a corner in a distant part of his mind.

It wasn't until after Trenzalore and impossible things and the seven hundred years' war that he began to wonder when he'd met Melody Malone in another life.

* * *

Epilogue 3

"I traveled with a Dalek, once. She kept asking me to make souffles."

Clara blinked, and set down the notes she'd been annotating for her morning class. "I'm sorry, what?"

From the console, the Doctor flipped a switch or two and shrugged, "I'm not even sure she could fit into that kitchen, but she did keep asking. Got so annoying after a while, I took her to see Emeril."

"Did he make her a souffle?"

"After a while, yeah."

Picking her pen back up, Clara bent her head and murmured, "I imagine the Dalek part wasn't the surprise he was expecting."

"No. Neither was the TARDIS materializing in his kitchen. I did apologize for that, though--after we took out the infestation of Nosgurilns. Nasty things, Nosgurilns."

"So it was a working lunch meeting," she said. Ah. That was the last point she'd need to make in the morning. Hopefully, they'd even make it all of the way through to hear it. She ticked off the box, underlined the second-to-last word and then began stowing the notes in her bag.

"You could say that, yeah."

Clara looked up at the Doctor, wondering if she'd be able to tell him, now. "Did I ever tell you about the time..." she trailed off and sighed. "You remember now, don't you."

He met her gaze, then walked over to lean against the railing above her. "I do and I don't. It's all up here, the brain sometimes just needs time to adjust."

"I knew enough to know she couldn't die, not like that. And..." Fiddling with a zipper, she murmured, "You once told me about how they were locked out of the motive units, and I wondered... I wondered how that had happened."

"You were correct, of course."

"Still. Probably best not to think about it too hard." For one thing, Clara wasn't sure if she wanted to know the actual end of Oswin the Dalek. Not when she wasn't entirely sure _she_ remembered.

"I'm afraid I don't actually know. We could find out--?"

"No." Standing, Clara touched his arm, then moved away, heading for the door. "We've got bigger and brighter things to think about. What's past should stay past."

"Same time tomorrow?"

"I've parent-teacher meetings all the rest of the week. But after Saturday?" Giving him a last smile in goodbye, Clara stepped out of the TARDIS.

-f-

(for reals, this time)

(except for the sequel)


End file.
